


Meet Me at Cathedral Drive

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Series: Witch AU [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2589248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shuuhei, a Witch's Familiar with an ailment of the enchanted and physically mutated variety, runs some errands, makes some friends, helps kill a mythological monster that by all accounts shouldn’t exist, and just generally attracts trouble like a magnet. There involves a rambunctious Witch, a kickass knight, a monster to be slain, and a spooky boy on a train in the middle of the night, and a metric ton of magic being thrown around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Me at Cathedral Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Illustration by CryingLittlePeople. Check out more amazing Bleach art and original art at cryinglittlepeople.tumblr.com!

The sun is glaring through the cracks in the blinders and with the consideration to blast directly the fuck into Shuuhei’s face when he wakes up, which must mean that he’s overslept. If he cares to unclog the sleep from his consciousness, he can hear Renji rattling around with something downstairs, swearing up a storm as he tries to get an early handle on the kind of work that can’t be done in daylight.

By obligation of a moral and occupational persuasion, Shuuhei should be concerned that Renji gets a glimpse of the outside world, eats breakfast, and showers regularly. But with any luck, unless his work takes a turn for the strenuous and obsessive, Renji already knows that being nagged is more irritating than the effort it takes to actually take care of himself. Begrudgingly, this is something Shuuhei appreciates. That aside, he’s still probably expecting breakfast.

There’s little doubt that outside it’s absolutely freezing, but the sun-soaked wood floorboards are warm when Shuuhei’s feet touch down and he slips out of bed. He rearranged his sheets, comforter, and a misshapen colorful monstrosity of a wool quilt on his mattress in a half-assed way to make the bed. The cozy little 3-walled shelf that Shuuhei treats as his room may just be one of the neatest, cleanest places in the entire fucking house and he’d really care to keep it that way, thank you.

The atrociously rickety ladder creaks and complains under Shuuhei’s feet as he ambles down to the first floor, and the mess of the house gradually increases as he ventures further and further from his own den into what is de facto Renji-territory. Spine-broken books and stacks of paper litter the floor not in piles but in mounds, the pages blandly staring as if to accuse the onlooker for daring to open and not finish their texts. The walls are heavy with shelves holding (to the surprise of no one) more books, but also jars, devices of polished bronze and silver, small bones, and knickknacks that don’t appear to have any credible use at all. Near the wood-warped window frames where the most natural light and fresh air can seep in, cast-iron cauldrons hang by way of chains to contain tendrils of green vines that drape down and brush the floor.

In the scant spaces that aren’t occupied by shelves and mounds of things, it’s not uncommon for Shuuhei to see a rune drawn on, either white with chalk or red with not chalk. Some of them look a little faded, the magic wearing out of them, and Shuuhei will need to remind Renji to redraw them or else the entire spell will need to be redone from scratch.

Speaking of the man of the hour- a brawny mass of tattoos and red hair wrapped up in a ratty, black hoodie has his back to Shuuhei as he leans precariously in an wheeled office chair. Shuuhei hopes that whatever he has on the kitchen table over there isn’t dead raccoon or something because that’s really just going to make serving breakfast more stressful than it needs to be.

Renji either doesn’t notice or doesn’t acknowledge Shuuhei, which makes it easy for him to squeeze around a statue of a gargoyle that Renji keeps in the main room for fuck all reasons and into the kitchen. It’s been a long journey from Shuuhei’s space at one end of the house to his space at the other end but we made it, kids.

Because there’s still coffee in the pot when he gets in there, Shuuhei rewards his custodian with a semi-healthy breakfast- two eggs, sunny-side up just the way Renji likes it, four strips bacon fried until they’re almost unappetizingly crunchy, and a heaping serving of hashbrowns on the side. The assholes at the pancake house who take half an hour to rustle this kind of shit up and serve it cold and overpriced can kiss his ass, because magic or no magic nothing in his world has ever managed to stop Shuuhei from being a fabulous cook.

He drops the plate on the table in front of Renji, next to the colony of filthy mugs that have been accumulating since they were cleared away last week. There’s a tattered, dog-eared tome in the redheads lap that looks like it could be used as a bludgeon to cause blood-force head trauma opened to a page titled in bold “Practical Uses for Deer: The Buck Stops Here” and what appears to be a fist-sized chunk of obsidian in one hand. Shuuhei really isn’t interested in the details.

“G’morning, Sunshine.” Renji drawls, pulling the plate over to rest on top of the open book. “Or noon. I see you’ve decided to join the ranks of the living yet again, and I should mention I am almost entirely positive that most people don’t get their day started at one o’clock on a friday. An’ yet, for all that beauty sleep you don’t even look any prettier. What a shame.”

He makes a grab for the mug in Shuuhei’s hand, which gets immediately swatted away as Shuuhei sits down with the bag of uncooked bacon still in his hand. “Fuck you, this one’s mine. Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?”

A heaping forkful of potatoes shoveled into Renji’s mouth accompany his entirely uninterested tone as he answers. “‘Scuse the hell right outta me, but I thought you’d need it since you’re in for a long night. I got some errands for you to run and I need you just how I like you for them, which is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and not running out of steam and crashing in a ditch somewhere.”

Ah, Shuuhei forgot that today was shopping day. Shuuhei picks a strip of raw bacon up by the fatty end and drops it in his mouth like it’s a gummy worm, mildly annoyed to hear about his chores since he’s only just been caffeinated and is still in his boxers and undershirt. “Is this, like, normal errands? ‘Pick up milk, nightshade, and possum teeth’ kind of errands or ‘you might end up in the sewer with the business end of something pointy and tendinitis-inducing sticking out of your gut’?”

“It’s not really any fun if it’s not half of one and six a dozen a’ the other, is it?” Renji says, finally lifting his eyes from his notes and his food to give Shuuhei a grin so shit-eating that the Familiar wants to drop him in a septic tank. “We’ve got a commission tonight. Request came in a few hours ago by the Witch Way, involving an uninvited houseguest in the shape and size of a monster and a client who’s willing to pay out their rich, well-to-do asshole for us to remove it. We could get real rich real fast.”

“You’ll get rich, you mean.” Shuuhei points out, nonplussed, swallowing down his bacon. “I’m an indentured servant.”

“I’ll treat you for good behavior.” Renji says in a tone that dangled between being sincere and being just about as sweet as arsenic when he leans over and gives Shuuhei an entirely condescending tug on the cheek.

Before Shuuhei can respond with something low-key like another swat or perhaps a more dramatic sneer, Renji’s paws are digging around in his hoodie pocket and produce a coffee-ringed piece of paper that he slides onto the table. Shuuhei, in turn, bares the sting on his cheek with a graceful scowl and snatches it up.

It’s pretty standard stuff for a Witch, and a pretty asinine series of errands for one’s Familiar. He’s gonna have to go into the city and scrounge around in the usual haunts of magicfolk, which honestly kind of creep him out but he’s been doing this for enough years to “take yer scrawny, whiny ass and shove a plug of cultural sensi-fucking-tivity in it” as Renji once told him during a particularly entertaining episode of his patience running out. A slate-gray eye rolls down the list boredly while he contemplates that he has to put on pants for this.

“Pick up the ingredients first- look for the pink salt instead of the white, if they have it.” Renji rattles out, procuring a scalpel from who knows where and starting to absently shave chunks of rock off the obsidian. “Run the deliveries after that, but if they aren’t waiting for you when you get there then don’t bother. This ain’t a mail company-”  
“This ends with an address and nothing else.” Shuuhei notes, raising a brow and tapping at the bottom of the paper, where ‘Cathedral Drive, four steps to the right of the apple blossom fountain’ is scrawled out in Renji’s atrocious handwriting.

“That’s where we’re meeting our client. I’m gonna join you there and we can negotiate the cost of our very extraordinary services two on one.” Renji explains in an important kind of tone he has that makes it sound like he’s barking. “After that, it’s all kicking ass and dumping bodies.

“An exciting night already planned and it’s only the start of the weekend. We’re on the top of our social game.”

-

There’s the obnoxious moment where Shuuhei realizes that A) the world outside isn’t going to be nearly as comfortable and sleepy and warm as the one inside, an B) in order to prove A, he needs to actually get dressed.

It’s one thing for Renji to go out- he only dresses like gaudy, lazy goth trash when in public because he could get off on the attention if he were in a big enough crowd. For an inhuman like Shuuhei, he has to be mildly more careful. He’s warmed up and wrapped into a heavy pair of jeans, black tshirt, dark wool overcoat and steel-toed boots that might actually be just a size too big. It’s hard to be inconspicuous with the scars and all, but he’s gonna try his damn best to manage. Nothing wrong with looking a little dangerous on the streets, especially if it gets some people out of your way when they see you coming.

But, of course, there’s a line between a little dangerous and begging to be put down like a rabid dog in the middle of the marketplace, which is where the infuriating device of the muzzle comes it.

It’s designed to fit perfectly over his face, covering him from chin to cheekbone, made with heavy plastic and a thick kind of mesh grating on the air holes so that there’s no chance of catching a glimpse of what’s underneath. Shuuhei checks his reflection in the bathroom before leaving, first getting an eyeful of his naked face; vertical scars and a cloudy eye on the right side, sketchy tattoos that don’t mean a thing to anybody but him on the left, and a whole mess of jagged teeth that fight each other for room, below. Even with his mouth sealed just, a few spire-like fangs manage to angle their way to hang over his lips and give him the appearance of being slack-jawed, stupid, and monstrous. As soon as he opens his mouth, two rows of wicked, dagger-like teeth the color of polished abalone are ready to greet anyone who catches a glimpse.

Shuuhei fingers one incisor tenderly, prodding the tip and recognizing that it’s easily sharp enough to impale himself if he’s not careful. Shockingly, this is not your typical standard of beauty for young men of Shuuhei’s age, and among some circles is even cause for alarm.

He adjusts the muzzle over his face, fastening the straps around the back of his head until he looks less like a bloodthirsty freak and more just like a dog who’s seen the rough end of obedience training.

Which is really what it’s supposed to do, Shuuhei thinks. A scarf draped over that hot mess makes it look more like his mother dressed him to go out but otherwise looks much better.

After Renji sends him off with nothing more heartfelt than a pat on the ass, he’s got a pocket full of yen, a knapsack full of charms, and a head full of bad attitude, so he guesses he’s ready to go.

From the outside, the two-story house crammed to the breaking point with useless magical junk looks exactly like an old, run-down wagon. Like the kind with the big wooden wheels as a traveling circus might use for one of it’s main acts, only it’s had the holy hell enchanted out of it in order to fit Renji’s needs.

He likes to park it out in the middle of nice, woodsy ass-fuck nowhere so he can do rituals outside under the stars, making sacrifices and prayers to his dark gods in private when reasonable people (Shuuhei) are inside and trying to sleep. Shuuhei is about as religious as a small pile of bricks and can’t keep the names of all the gods straight if his life depended on it, but performing the worship every fucking week seems like overkill. Kinda desperate, really. But Renji’s deep-seeded desire to slobber all over an enchanted shadow-tendril of a god’s dick is really none of Shuuhei’s concern.

The bitter cold makes for an unfortunate walk to the nearest station (which is, would you believe his luck, not actually all that near) where Shuuhei can take a shuttle into town. Since the car isn’t crowded, he folds his arms with his fingers tucked into the warmth of his armpits and enjoys some blissful alone time.

On foot, the walk into town would have been like a stroll through hell’s deepest, coldest, unbothered frozen freezerburns but in the shuttle it’s just long enough to finish up a good nap when the car shudders to a halt, doors ringing open and spilling the all the warmth out into the open winter air. Shuuhei fiddles with his hands long enough to adjust his scarf over his muzzle and check his bag before shoving his fists in his pockets and slipping into the crowd.

It’s not the best part of the city but that comes as no surprise. The streets are warped surreal, like children’s doodles angling every wobbly direction with no particular purpose. Alleys and sidewalks are tangled and interwoven like brambles, and the houses are built with an old kind of crookedness to them. Shops are crammed in together like walls in a labyrinth, and scrambling around feels a good deal like being a rat in a cage. Shuuhei, having been actually turned into a rat more than once, knows the feeling.

You’d have a hard time telling who’s human and who’s not out here. It’s a mortal city, so the rates of inhumans and magicfolk are going to be regarded as a minority no matter what. Magical artifacts aren’t a market exclusive to Renji’s brood, though no one but a magic user is going to be able to use them worth two shits. It’s never stopped humans from trying, anyways. Witches tend to let them, because they’re usually not above making some quick coin off an eccentric wannabe-warlock.

Shuuhei heads up the main street and it’s clear enough, but once he starts to angle off the beaten path and make some twisty turny ways to some smaller streets he has to start kicking garbage out of the way.

After a while, the street is severed in two by a bridgeless stream bubbling with black, bruise-colored water and Shuuhei almost topples off the edge trying to make the jump even with a running start. Fortunately, he hits the cobblestone in a sprint and then almost runs directly into the door of the shop Renji specified in his list.

The inside of the store slaps Shuuhei in the face with a puff of hot air from the heater, and it’s pleasant for about five seconds before he’s sweating under his coat and scarf. The place is obviously run by a Witch, if the general hodgepodge of magical ingredients and runes sketched all over the damn place wasn’t a giveaway then the general state of mess and chaos was. The owner herself, a tall drink of water with a brawny kind of wiriness to her, sits behind the counter and doesn’t pay Shuuhei much mind as he plucks stuff off the shelf and carts it around by the armful.

Upon finishing his grand adventure, he drops the great heap on her counter and she punches the numbers in like people have been buying salamander legs from her all day, which they probably have. The price is read in a drone and when Shuuhei pulls out the wads of crumpled bills Renji gave him, a sudden racket jolts him and he nearly throws the handful of coins in her face in alarm.

Her Familiar, a scruffy-looking owl that appears to be more fluff than bird, squawks and flaps itself into a tizzy in the huge, ornamental cage she has set up behind her. The Witch gives the owl an alarmed look and turns her attention back to Shuuhei with blatant suspicion and distrust.

Shuuhei, ever the optimist, still tries to hold on to the possibility that he can get through this while retaining his dignity and shrugs weakly. “Nice bird.” He says dully, and that his voice is muffled to the point where ungarbling his words is a challenge doesn’t make him seem any less threatening.

“What are you, pal?” She asks him, not taking her eyes off his face as she unlocks the cage and lets the bemused avian perch on her hand. Not ‘Who are you’ but ‘what’. Fucking rude.

Immediately Shuuhei’s hackles are up and he has the automatic urge to assert his dominance by roundhouse-kicking the fuzzball bird across the street, but instead he refrains from a deep groan and relents to pull down his scarf. Her brows disappear in shaggy bangs with his muzzle on display. To a human, he might just be some guy with some pretty freaky fashion, but no doubt she’s heard stories about ones like him and what they look like- inhumans who have been ‘domesticated’.

“Where’s your master, boy?” She asks, and Shuuhei inwardly blanches. He would rather take off his muzzle in public and eat it than refer to Renji as his ‘master’.

“My custodian sent me for a pick-up.” Shuuhei corrects her, putting a good deal of emphasis on the word “custodian”. The effect, however, might be lost with the fact that through the muzzle, his voice sounds kind of far away and muffled, like he has a very bad cold.

“Well, ain’t you just the most talented pet in show?” She says, and it’s half scathing taunt and half being legitimately impressed. Like Shuuhei has really gone above and beyond at being able to run around as a delivery boy in his deplorable state of being less than a person.

Shuuhei holds his tongue with enough will and patience to get him canonized as a new god and sets down the payment for the merchandise before she can think to raise the price under the pretense that a stupid inhuman just might not know any better. With a sweep of his arm that’s not all together graceful, he whisks his purchases into the bag and high-tails it out of the shop with his scarf tight around his face, showing nothing below his eyes.

What meager shopping he has to do is blessedly uneventful compared to that. No fan of the winter is Shuuhei, but he’s always grateful to avoid the stares and uncomfortable silences his face inevitably provokes. This time of year, he’s just some creepy dude. People want his money and then they want him gone, and Shuuhei is all too happy to comply.

Deliveries are the best part, by which he means to say that they’re the least awful. Renji does nearly all his work on commissions, casting spells or designing charms in a way that’s so efficient people aren’t always eager to let others know that they’ll pay for what’s considered dark magic. That’s their own deal. To Renji (and Shuuhei, as well) “dark” is a subjective and hyperflexible term.

As per Renji’s orders, Shuuhei doesn’t cater to any of Renji’s customers who aren’t on time. His job is to show up at the designated meeting point, the client approaches him with the money. An arrangement is made and the charm changes hands they scuttle off, never to be seen again. About two are no-shows, but it’s no skin off of Shuuhei’s nose. He’s not gonna waste time looking for them and if they changed their mind about buying magic, there’s always someone else who will take their place.

Shuuhei doesn’t like to inflate Renji’s ego by admitting that he’s a decent businessman. Not while he’s out here doing all the legwork, at least.

But that last part is about to change when the sun starts to set and there’s only one item left on the list, and that’s to be present for the rendezvous on Cathedral Drive. No sooner is Shuuhei checking the location than the cathedral belltown roars above him, striking nine times from it’s spire far above the rest of the city, heard by everyone in town borders.

The Cathedral is closer towards the center of town, a good ways away from the alleys and seedy witchcraft peddlers on the outskirts. Shuuhei’s feet carry him further and further in, and after a while the roads get less like they were designed by a punch-drunk lemur and more with some semblance of coordination in mind. The late evening foot traffic decreases in measure of looking intimidating and rough, though that does little to assuage Shuuhei’s discomfort. Shops look less ramshackle and starved for space. Street lamps overhead glare with an intense level of artificial cheerfulness in a way that casts shadows on neatly-trimmed shrubbery and grave-sized gardens.

Drawing closer, the roof of the cathedral bites into the moon and looks a great deal like the ancient castle it sort of is. Enormous bricks the color of fog reflect the unreal glow of the stained glass decorating every window. An intricate circle sits above the door in the middle of the structure like a glowing, unblinking cyclopean eye, casting it’s light down in splatters of magenta, teal, seafoam and crimson. A collage of brilliance.

The place kind of creeps Shuuhei out.

He’s not quite sure why Renji would want to arrange a meeting even close to a place like this, on account of he’s never been a fan of the Church to begin with. Occasions find Renji and Shuuhei in town together, and the custodian is perfectly content to lead his charge away from the place in a wide berth. When the bell tower chimes or he happens to catch a glimpse of the roof in the sky, Renji has this way of getting a sour look on his face, fists clenched like he’s about to pull some really sketchy magic out of his pocket and use it to rip the place down brick by brick. And worse, he looked like he believed he actually could.

Now, Shuuhei’s not so dim as to take even half of Renji’s tantrums seriously. He’s Renji’s Familiar and, despite gross exaggerations and unfortunate media representation, this does NOT make him Renji’s pet, so he’s perfectly capable of making his own opinions, thank you very much.

But anything that draws that scathing of an emotional response from Renji- that’s not good news.

He potters around the cathedral in a semi-vacant manner, eventually noticing the fountain as was directed to him. In Shuuhei’s defense, it’s pretty easy to miss on account of the fact that it’s around the size of a bathtub, four heads of lionesses rising from the bottom to spout water from their mouths. Each one bears a different expression, a new snarl or roar. The apple tree hangs over the fountain, looking suspiciously vibrant and lively for it being the time of year for trees to be bare and dead. It has a warm aura that manages to draw Shuuhei in. He’s surprised to find that steam is rising from the water, curling over the edge of the basin.

Passing his four-steps-away boundaries, Shuuhei stares at it and feels just a little bit enchanted.

“Beautiful, yeah?” A voice chirps, and Shuuhei is about to enact what he thought about inflicting on the owl in the shop out of sheer distaste for being surprised when he looks up and sees what could very well be the most beautiful woman he will ever see in his entire, unfortunate life.

She stands with an insurmountable kind of confidence in her step, hips angled to put her weight on one side like nothing in the world could knock her down. Her choppy, chin-length hair is like flaxen gold and her eyes are impossibly bright, crinkled around the edges with the force of her own smile like there isn’t a cruel or unjust bone in her body. Her leather jacket is zipped up to the collar and somehow she makes it cool elegant as well as cool.

There’s also a really fucking huge sword at her hip.

She’s still smiling absently as her boots knock against the sidewalk and she draws a little closer under the canopy of the apple tree. “For the Ash Goddess. They say it’s like a breath of summertime all year ‘round."

“Uh.” Shuuhei says in a way that is really cool and smart. “What do they call it in the summer?”

“Hush. We’re having a moment, you and I.”

“Okay.”

The two of them just stand like that for a moment, watching the fountain bubble cheerfully while the ascending lioness heads display their rage. It’s nice. Peaceful. So quiet its starting to get uncomfortable.

Thankfully, she breaks the silence. “… Are you Renji Abarai?”

“What-” Shuuhei answers back and finishes up making a stellar first impression of himself. He chokes a little on a laugh thinking about it. “Ha! Ah- no, I’m- uh. I’m his representative.”

Which, admittedly, did sound a lot better than ‘My immortal soul is tied to his lifeforce.’ Don’t wanna be giving out the wrong signals or anything. Then realization hits him at full force.

“Are you the commission he got this morning? With the monster thing.”

She nods and rolls her eyes with a smile. “Yeah, that’s me. With the monster thing. I was really going to handle it myself-” With that sword attached to her, Shuuhei is inclined to believe this. “But I was persuaded. A friend of mine told me he knew about a guy who was good with this sort of stuff.”

Who the hell is referring Renji Abarai of all dickprinces?

“If you’re his representative, do you know when he’ll be here?” The woman asks, and it dawns on Shuuhei that he had no instructions aside from just being here. There wasn’t even an arranged time on the note for when Renji was even expected to arrive.

Well, fuck this with something cold and wet. “He’ll be here soon!” Shuuhei promises and his voice doesn’t even crack a little or anything. Time to stall. “Maybe you could tell me a little more about this situation you’re in?”

This seems to satisfy her, and she settles to sit on the edge of the fountain and enjoy the steam on her back. “Right! Sorry, didn’t even introduce myself or anything. I’m Rangiku Matsumoto.” She draws her sword and on instinct Shuuhei scrambled half a step back, but she digs the business end in the cobblestone and holds her hands on the top of the hilt stiffly like she’s standing for attention, that charming smile never leaving her face. “Legionnaire of the Tenth Cohort.”

Shuuhei drinks that in for a minute. By design, people don’t know much about the Cohorts. From what Shuuhei understands, they’re more or less a mercenary army of knights who disperse over the globe for the sake of righteous acts. Usually, it’s righteous acts for a hefty price, of course, although Shuuhei can imagine that a business model like that would need a lot of publicity and pro bono work to get off the ground so maybe there’s something there. And while he’s not the kind of person to make snap judgements like this, he can’t imagine this girl taking advantage of people in need and draining them for all they’re worth.

“I was doing a job for a client up north but it sort of ended up being outside my field of experience. Thought I might bring in an expert and we’d split the bounty.”

Well, that does seem reasonable, but Shuuhei’s beginning to get a sinking feeling about this escapade. If a knight can’t take down a monster, what good is a Witch going to do about it?  
As if waiting on cue to be the world’s biggest asshole, he finally shows. Shuuhei doesn’t even notice it himself until Rangiku’s eyes slide next to him and her expression drops. “… What the hell is that?”

Shuuhei turns around in time to see his own shadow against the yellow spot of the streetlamp, bending and curling like it’s trying to break it down old-school. About the point where Shuuhei is half expecting the bass to drop, his shadow sort of slides sideways and rises like something underneath it in the ground is pushing up. It grows and narrows until what looms there is no longer just a shadow but a very person-like shape.

The shape unravels like a cocoon, tendrils of darkness reeling back to uncover none other than Renji “Motherfucker” Abarai, fresh from the Witch Ways. rolling his sleeves back down as the shadows recede into the tattoos on his arms and down his neck.

He got dressed up for the occasion, by which means to say he kept the hoodie and acquired gray jeans and red sneakers with distressingly bright neon orange and purple laces to them. Gaudy silver bracelets and rings adorn his hands and the atrocious tiger-print bandanna that Shuuhei loathes has a brother in the pattern of leopard print tying back his hair.

Shuuhei hopes that he’s accomplished what he meant to and that Rangiku is impressed, because in the Familiar’s own humble opinion Renji deserves a swift kick in the balls just for the theatrics. He would share this right now if he didn’t mean he might get turned into something undignified in front of this pretty lady. You win this round, Abarai.  
Renji strides forwards, a few tentacles of inky void slipping back under his skin and he holds out a hand for Rangiku to shake, all jangly bracelets and a grin that screams “I am tough but pleasant” which is a bold-faced nonverbal lie.

“Heard you’re our client- name’s Renji Abarai. You met my associate, Shuuhei Hisagi.”

Rangiku looks vaguely impressed, but she clearly hasn’t seen Renji do this enough times to get sick of it like Shuuhei has, and let’s her hand get shaken. “Oh! Yes, good to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Shuuhei misses on a lot of the rest of the conversation, which is really fine by him because it involves bounties and prices and conditions and all that. He sort of has to fight the urge to fall into Renji’s shadow or attach himself to the Witch’s side. Like he has a pang of separation anxiety or something. Which is stupid. With Renji, hound dog for a good deal extraordinaire, negotiations go by remarkably quickly, but Shuuhei suspects that Rangiku has a lot to do with it. These two could be a spark in a powder keg, Shuuhei knows it.

At some point a deal is made, an arrangement settled. Renji, an anchor if ever there was one, drags Shuuhei back to reality with a clap on his shoulder and a half-grin half-snarl like white-hot explosions and bad ideas. “Ready to go, Shuuhei?”

Ready as he’ll always be.

-

There’s a late night train that swings by close enough to where Rangiku’s not-so-little friend has been scampering. Shuuhei would have preferred to take the shuttle by a long shot, but it’d fucking impossible to find space on a shuttle on a friday night. The train as it is happens to be a little more full than any of the three of them would have preferred, especially with Rangiku still hammering out the details of the where and the what.

“I was hired by the Church,” And yep, as soon as she says that, Renji stiffens up. Even if Shuuhei weren’t sitting next to him with Rangiku across from him, he’d be able to smell the nerves on him from a mile away. “They were doing archaeological research on this ruins site, translating some records on old prophecies while I starred as the bodyguard. No one expected to find something that wasn’t covered in a hundred years of dust and made out of rock, but low and behold here we are today.”

Rangiku gets frosty the longer her story goes on, either with frustration at the creature or at herself. “I fought it off and chased it away, but not before it managed to kill a priest and wound two others. The entire site is zoned off until that thing gets really dead really fast.”

Shuuhei gets the sinking feeling that Renji, whose eyes glazed over slightly when he heard the word ‘priest’ and might not actually have retained anything else, is going to say something awful and sarcastic like “the poor dears”, so Shuuhei cuts him off before any words can escape his self-sabotaging mouth. “Did you see what it was that attacked you, Miss Matsumoto?”

“It was only breathing down my neck like I was lambchops before I stuck my sword in it’s-” She falters, brows knitting together and a careful gaze in Shuuhei’s direction. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not pleasant either. “… Are you okay, Shuuhei?”

That’s sort of a broad question. Did he do something weird? He doesn’t think so. “Uh- yeah, I’m fine.”

“You still have that scarf on, it kind of makes it hard to understand what you’re saying.” Rangiku explains with an aspect of apology in her voice for some reason. “I mean- it’s not too hard, so you don’t have to-”

Renji’s arms are spread over the back of the train seat, one arm sprawled to curl over Shuuhei’s neckrest as well. His wrist curls in slightly, closing around Shuuhei’s space protectively in a way that is frankly embarrassing, drawing a curious and kind of suspicious look in his direction from Rangiku like two predators giving each other showy warning signs to back off.

Shuuhei very carefully, very precisely does not rip off Renji’s arm and physically demonstrate where he can shove his overprotective sentiments with it. Instead, he relents to rip off the scarf and admittedly it does feel nice not collecting sweat on his neck all gross-like. As soon as it’s off, Rangiku’s eyes are wide and her head is tilted like a cat watching prey as she drinks in the sight of the muzzle. Shuuhei, with the same carefulness and precision, tries not to sink back into the shitty cushions on the train seats and pray to whatever Renji’s gods are that nobody else on the train looks over here.

“So- About the monster.” Shuuhei says in a voice that’s clearer, but not by much.

Rangiku bounces back gracefully, making an effort to rip her eyes away from the abhorrence covering Shuuhei’s face. “Not to overstate myself or nothing, but I’ve slain my fair share of monsters in a way some might classify as suitably knightly. But this thing- well, I almost thought it was a ghost or something. It looked sorta-” Rangiku seems to struggle for words and then gives up with a shrug. “Generic, I guess? Like, it was sort of vaguely person-shaped, but a lot bigger. Black skin with red markings…”

She trails off and looks between Shuuhei and Renji expectantly who, in turn, glance at each other with twin expressions of cluelessness before lasering back in on Rangiku for her to continue. She looks a little disappointed, and Shuuhei wonders if she somehow gleaned higher expectations of what being an “expert” constituted from where ever she heard about Renji from. “… Had these big, spirally horns, it’s face was all white-”

Now that catches Renji’s attention. “White?” He says, a quiet surge of excitement building inside him like static electricity. “White as in, like, made of bone?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Rangiku says, with hunched shoulders and an air of someone who’s well and truly lost by this point.. “It’s not like I was getting handsy with it while I was trying to snap me up, so I don’t know if it was made of bone or skin or cornmeal or anything.”

“And did it have a hole in it’s body?” Renji is bubbling with growing enthusiasm, and vacantly waves an arm over his torso. “Like, in this general area?”

“Didn’t see.” Rangiku replies. “On account of it was dark as hell’s asshole and the thing was moving too fast for me to see much more than it’s limbs and it’s face. And the business end of it’s teeth, especially.” In one fluid motion the zipper of her jacket goes down and she peels down the collar to reveal a stunningly bright mark of dark red on her throat, nasty scrapes of teeth still scabbing over in a gruesome scar. Shuuhei winces and feels his own throat go tight, but Renji looks like somebody just told him it was Halloween, Christmas, and his birthday all on the same day.

“It’s a hollow!” He is really one merry motherfucker now, inappropriately giddy. “I didn’t think we were gonna see one again for fucking years! Oh gods, oh fucking gods!”

Rangiku, on the other hand, goes a little frantic in the eyes at this exclamation. Something stubborn and furious when she folds her arms over her chest and says, with no degree of uncertainty, “No it wasn’t.”

“Oh yes it was!” Renji is cackling and Shuuhei stomps on his foot. Someone died, Renji.

“Hollows aren’t real.” Rangiku says, a tinge of iron in her voice. “They’re a myth made up to get people to respect the dead and pay for extra for exorcism ceremonies. I can’t tell you how many times someone has come around the Cohort with complaints about bullshit ‘hollows’ when it was really just poltergeists dicking around in Halloween masks.”

“Is that what your Church told you?” Renji is full of spit and vinegar and smarminess and high off of being right. “Because from what I can tell, it sounds more like you have a real, actual, soul-munching hollow on your hands, and you disturbed it’s resting place.”

Rangiku looks towards Shuuhei, him being the one least hysterical of the bunch. Shuuhei angles his shoulders helplessly. “Sorry, but. It does sound pretty much exactly like a hollow. And trust me- they exist. I’ve been close enough to know.”

“This is so great! You have no idea what kind of spells I’ll be able to cast up with even just a fragment of a hollow mask! I don’t even know what I’m going to cast but I’m gonna cast the gods-loving shit out of it! Of course, you’ll need the blood-” Renji tells Rangiku in a glimmering moment of coherency. “After you kill a hollow, the blood they spilled from their wounds are they only things that stick around, unless you’re real lucky and you break off a bit of the mask, too. And you’ll need it as evidence t’ prove you really killed the damn thing to bring back to the Cohort-”

Renji’s amber eyes meet Shuuhei’s steel and in a split second he quiets down. Shuuhei his doing his very best to give him a warning expression with only his eyes, without letting Rangiku know that he needs Renji to divine up some measure of self-control, and it seems to ground him.

“I can whip up a containment spell and lock it in. Shuuhei has all the ingredients I need. After that, it’ll be a sitting duck for you to lop it’s head off.” Renji says with much more control, like the dial has been successfully turned down.

Rangiku looks a little bothered and fussy by this, no doubt she’s not happy to have what equates to the Boogeyman’s existence sprung on her, confirming a good chunk of the old legends and stories that all reasonable and progressive people cast off as being ridiculous and that certain crowds even found heretic. “So it’s true, then. You really are a Witch?”

“In the flesh.”

“You’re not really what I was expecting a Witch to be like.”

Renji sinks deeper into his seat looking half-offended and half-curious. “You’re not really what I was expecting a knight to be like.”

Some of the fire ignites back in her eyes, cold and blue and breathtaking. “That’s because you haven’t seen me kill a hollow, yet.”

By the time the train stops, it’s the dead of night. It’s even later when Rangiku leads them off road and away from the blinking lights and civilization. Further from light pollution deadening the air, the stars and the moon are brilliant overhead. Not quite bright enough, to keep the creepy crawly feeling of being somewhere he shouldn’t be off his back. Renji snaps his fingers and there’s a smell of sulfur that accompanies magic and suddenly his eyes are big and yellow and electric and glow like headlights.

“You shouldn’t enjoy being creepy this much.” Shuuhei hisses while Renji snickers and points his flashlight eyes around the road until they glare in Rangiku’s face and she swats him.

It’s not all that hard to find ruins near the towns. They’re powerful sources of magic, very old and very strong, and it draws magic users of all kinds to them, not just Witches but Sorcerers, Prophets and Scribes and clans even older than that revolving around the energy of something archaic and larger than life itself.

Renji’s eyes bore two yellow holes into the darkness and he keeps his eyes on the road as Rangiku leads them, and eventually Shuuhei’s eyes acclimate to the dead of night. Jagged slice of shattered buildings stick out of the fields like stalagmites. Walls ripped into splinters and litter the plains like snowdrifts and Shuuhei gets the distinct feeling that they’ve arrived when he trips over some yellow caution police tape that someone has set up deceptively close to where his shins would be.

“What is it, boy? Didya’ find something?” Renji’s spotlights roll over Shuuhei’s prostate form.

“Choke on my dick and die.” Shuuhei attempts to summon the willpower to stand up again. His attempt is begrudgingly successful, at at the very least be can be grateful that the damned muzzle prevents him from an impressive bruise on his face. The irony is so palatable Shuuhei could grind it into paste between his razor teeth.

Rangiku steps past them, ignoring their antics like a champ. “This is the place where I fought it. If we’re lucky, it’s still licking it’s wounds.”

At first, Shuuhei can’t distinguish what’s so different about these chunks of rocks from the chunks of rocks they’ve been walking past before. but when Renji throws some light around it becomes a lot more clear. Grooves in the stones like nasty claws, dents that are far too person-shaped to have accumulated with age, russet dappling the off-white and stinking of old blood.

“Okey-doke.” Renji claps his hands and rubs them, looking at the ruins like a kid in a candy shop who’s far too familiar with sugar rushes than he needs to be. He blinks once and his eye-light flickers off and on. “I’m gonna start on the containment. Shuu, you know the drill. Rangiku- get ready to slice it’s head off the moment it shows up, or at least the moment before it kills us.”

Rangiku nods like this is a pretty standard instruction for her. She draws her sword like she did while introducing herself to Shuuhei and digs the edge in the ground, standing at attention with her feet spread like she’s a guardian of the entire shitty field of old rocks.

There’s a sound like a switchblade when Renji twists one of his sharper rings, turning it so it’s on the inside of his palm and squeezes his fist until a fresh wave of iron hits Shuuhei’s nose and a gentle trickle of blood rolls down the heel of his hand. In the manner of someone going about a routine so standard they could do it with their eyes closed, Renji drops to his knees, one hand pooling his blood from the cut in his palm and one finger dabbing like a paint brush before he crouches down to paint runes on any available stone surface.

Shuuhei doesn’t know exactly what Renji meant by ‘the drill’, to be frank, but he can make some educated guesses. The knapsack gets dropped on the ground and Shuuhei digs until he procures a few of the things Renji had him pick up while shopping- candles and a lighter. Alrighty, then. He’ll just fucking jam this shit on top of some rocks and light it up with this other shit. A-plus teamwork contribution right there, Shuuhei.

After a while, Renji’s self-spell on his eyes starts to fade just in time for Shuuhei to carve a nice, well-spread crescent of candle light across the site, at at least they won’t be fumbling around in the dark. The fact that the terrain is mostly ruin and grassless dirt will decrease the likelihood of starting a wildfire. Smokey the Bear would be proud. Now all the three of them have to do is not catch on fire their own fucking selves. Shuuhei, who is not a huge fan of being burned, concentrates on the smell of melting wax and the smell of peppermint spice instead of the flames dancing precariously close to his coat sleeve.

Shuuhei glances over to Rangiku, still standing guard, and to Renji, still painting out ancient languages no one but a magic folk is gonna understand for two fucks with the kind of laser-point focus in his eyes that he only ever seems to put into his work. With an exasperated kind of belligerent fondness, Shuuhei remembers that he should get Renji to drink some water if he’s gonna be spreading his blood out everywhere. Maybe he’ll chuck the water bottle at his head, or pour a little of it ice-cold down his neck, but before he can dig back into the depths of his bag he loses his chance.

Before Shuuhei even looks up there’s a huge, resounding CRACK and suddenly dirt is showering overwhere like a rainstorm, getting in Shuuhei’s eyes and blinding him with dust. The earth ripples bulges upwards like bones lurching out of skin.

It is decided that Rangiku must have either really skewed priorities or dearly wanted all three of them to die out here, because there is no way in the deep and gassy bowels of hell that this thing constitutes even mildly as “vaguely person-shaped”. It’s easily three times the size of Renji and even as it lumbers out of the earth and onto all fours it looks down, way down at the three invaders like they’re particularly ugly spiders.

“For fuck’s sa-” The end of Renji’s curse gets drowned out in it’s roar, a noise that sounds like night and mindless terror and ages and ages and ages and ages. It swings a meaty arm as thick as a family sedan at him and nearly knocks him into next week if only Renji hadn’t blanketed himself in shadows seeping across his skin and dissolved into darkness, taking a hop and a skip through the Witch Way to pop up in Shuuhei’s own shadow in the candlelight.

Shuuhei himself is sort of still marveling in abject, freakish fear when Renji grabs him by the coat lapels and drags him behind a crumbling ruin wall.

They don’t stay covered for long, because a shriek that sounds suspiciously like Rangiku launching herself at the beast makes both of them snap their heads up from their hiding positions. That wicked sword glints dark with the hollow’s maroon blood, and Rangiku is freckled with it and panting heavily and looking like someone emptied a volcano into her body.

The hollow reels backwards, blood shooting from it’s wound like a geyser and Shuuhei doubts that Rangiku is going to have much trouble getting that blood sample. And yet, it steadies itself back on it’s feet like the sword slice in it’s belly, neatly arcing over the hole in it’s middle, is no worse than a flesh wound. It’s old, too old to feel pain, but too alive not to respond to the threat in the shape of it’s paw snapping and sending Rangiku flying onto her back like a tossed ragdoll.

“We gotta help.” Shuuhei breathes, voice tinny and small under the muzzle.

“Looks that way. Fuckin’ A.” Renji growls and, beautiful brave shitlord he is, hikes himself over the wall with no weapon but his wits and his own two hands. “Hey, ugly!”  
The monster twists it’s spine in a way that puts a crick in Shuuhei’s back to watch, and it’s just in time for Renji to pull back his arms like there’s an invisible string tied into his palm, the palm right where blood is still oozing down his wrist, and the runes light up with a sinister glow like paper lanterns.

Netting like liquid silver seeps up and arches overheard, locking the the creature like a dome-

The creature, as well as the three who are attempting to kill it.

“You locked us inside with it?” Shuuhei roars and he could kill Renji. He swears to every god anyone has ever thought of that he could snap Renji’s neck over his knee right the fuck now. “That was your big plan? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Renji gives him back a look like he can’t believe Shuuhei is complaining about this when the hollow roars and they both have to dodge opposite ways in order to avoid being flattened into pancakes. Shuuhei rolls to a halt on his back and reflects that man, they really suck at this hero thing, don’t they?

Well, when Shuuhei dies it’s certainly not because he didn’t try his hardest to outrun death’s cold, clammy, groping fingers. His hands find the clasp for the muzzle and he rips it off with a heaving gasp of fresh air, teeth exposed to orange candlelight.

Renji is up and on his feet with maddening persistence, stomping ahead of Shuuhei like he’s fifty feet tall and with two fists full of inky magic. He throws his hands down and black light arcs like lightning into the ground and dance across the earth to grab onto two massive chunks of stone and smashing them together like an avalanche with the hollow sandwiched between. There’s a horrific crunch of bones breaking but that’s an awful lot of magic for Renji to use at once and Shuuhei knows exactly what’s going to happen when the hollow breaks free and lunges right at the idiot Witch before he can summon the energy to move out of the way.

Renji is a good few inches taller than Shuuhei but he’s nearly twice as broad around the shoulders, but sadly for the most part Witches are still human and they break frighteningly easy. Shuuhei, on the other hand, could bench press Renji as if he were full of feathers and starlight instead of bones and muscles. He was brought back from dead with rage between his teeth and fire in his knuckles and a predetermined destiny to not give a fuck, so he’s not really thinking when his foot makes contact with Renji’s ass and generously kicks him well out of the way so the hollow can crash into his body instead.

His back hits the dirt and it feels like Shuuhei’s entire body is going to be a bruise if he survives this, the hollow screaming and spitting in his face from a nasty, reeking mouth. A paw smashes down on Shuuhei’s chest and he can’t breath with the wind knocked out of him but he can still fight, and with one ‘fuck you’ of determination, Shuuhei’s teeth slice into the hollow’s arm like knives through water and his fangs scrap against bone.

The monster attempts to take back it’s paw back but Shuuhei’s jaws lock down and he is not letting go for love or money or life. There’s blood, blood as thick as oil pouring down his neck and into his mouth, sliding down his throat and it makes him sick like he wants to fucking die but he doesn’t let go.

The first sign of salvation comes in an outraged howl of “Get away from my Familiar!” and a pike made of pure black light and hatred pierces through the hollow’s face, putting a big spiderweb of a crack shimmying across it’s mask.

The hollow shrieks, not a roar like before but a scream that echoes eerily human, eerily desperate. And the hand that Shuuhei isn’t attached to like a lamprey claws at the beast’s own face to find the offending object even as Renji’s magic begins to fade into smoke. It’s not much of an opening, but it’s enough.

Rangiku comes out of the left field, body-slamming the hollow like her life depends on it (although the more immediate concern would be Shuuhei’s life, really) and even though it’s huge and she’s not, it’s hurt and off-balance and the torque is enough to topple it backwards like a pillar. The arm is yanked out of Shuuhei’s mouth and the hollow is splayed on it’s back with Rangiku straddling it’s chest. Blood-soaked and hissing like a feral cat, she lifts her maroon-splashed sword with two hands and plunges it into the hollow’s throat, and the blade is just wide enough to separate neck from body entirely.

The hollow hisses like it’s steaming over, spirals of black shadows floating skyward as it dissolved and within seconds Rangiku is dropped on her ass on account of the fact that there isn’t a hollow corpse underneath for her to land on.

She sits like that for a minute, arms straining to hold up the sword as if he hollow might remanifest and need to be impaled a second time. When it doesn’t, she droops with her face to the ground and exhales.

Shuuhei stands shakily, the blood getting dry and cold on his skin and his clothes and his mouth tasting like death itself. He ambles over in an exhausted way that takes an infuriatingly long time before he’s close enough to offer his hand to Rangiku so she can pull herself up. In the process, Shuuhei almost succeeds in going down himself, and he thinks that he might not mind taking a nice little nap here on the ground except Rangiku catches him and steadies him back on his feet with a high, hysterical little giggle. It’s not pleasant, it’s actually kind of raspy and gasping like she can’t quite get enough air in her, and it’s nice.

Her eyes go down to Shuuhei’s teeth, pink and bright with blood, and she breaks in another peal of laughter, as if to say Well, okay, then.

Before Shuuhei can finish processing this, he’s locked in a bearhug so suddenly he almost snaps his teeth down before he realizes it’s just Renji. He hugs like nobody ever gets cricks in their backs or has difficult gulping down air when he hugs them. He hugs Shuuhei with one and wrapped around his head and a intense bark in his voice. “Gods, Shuuhei- nobody hurts you like that. Nobody’s even fucking allowed to try. Not you. Not my Shuuhei. Mine. My fucking Familiar….” He echoes again, easing up on the hug like he’s suddenly embarrassed. “My Familiar.”

“My Witch.” Shuuhei counters into the cotton of his hoodie. His chest swells with affection.

-

On the train ride back into town, Renji and Rangiku fall asleep. Shuuhei is smushed into one seat where he can feel every ache where his body is going to scream at him tomorrow. Renji, who must have had half his life ripped out of him just to summon that pike and impale the hollow, is conked out on his left with his head on Shuuhei’s shoulder. Rangiku, who’s sporting a vibrant dark bruise on her check that stretched down underneath her shirt, leans against him with her chin tucked into her sternum on his right.

They’re gonna be awful to wake up when the train stops, but it’s okay. Shuuhei will keep an eye open for them until they get there, watching the landscape roll past from the window. One last middle finger up to the ruins as they drift farther and farther away.

Shuuhei blinks sleepily. He left his muzzle back in the ruins, but he’s really, really not willing to go back for it. His lips peel back in a wide yawn and he enjoys being able to stretch his jaw. He rubs his eyes with both hands and when he opens them again there’s a boy sitting across the train from him who wasn’t there before. No one but Shuuhei, Renji and Rangiku were on the train.

He’s a skinny thing, built all spidery arms and legs in a way that’s obvious even under navy blue turtleneck and black, hooded jacket with sleeves clearly too wide for him. Sitting with his legs crossed, ankle over the knee and his hands in his pockets like he belongs here and didn’t just appear out of thin air. With his hood up, Shuuhei can’t see a thing above his nose, but he catches strands of yellow dangling down by his ears, yellow like bright beams of sunshine and mustard gas clouds. There’s a pursed frown on his pale face and Shuuhei absently wonders if it’s directed at him.

                                                           

Fear of the unknown and sheer exhaustion out of everything else making his mind heavy and numb, Shuuhei clutches Renji’s sleeve.

The stranger pulls his hand out of his pocket, and his fingertips are dipped in blue like pen ink. he pulls down his hood and cranes his neck around with an air of someone with infinite curiosity, like he hasn’t been on a train in years and wants to look at everything until it’s burned in his brain while he can. His eyes are huge and watery, blue like permafrost.

Once he is finished looking, his gaze falls back on Shuuhei who, in turn, says nothing. He’s streaked in blood and most of it is pretty fucking close to his meat-grinder of a mouth with all the sinfully ugly teeth to show for it, which really doesn’t look good for him. By some strange miracle, the boy doesn’t look at all concerned with this. Still, Shuuhei wishes he still had his muzzle.

As if reading his mind, the boy’s blue fingers dip into his pockets again. “I have something of yours.” his voice is clear as rainwater, lower and more powerful than Shuuhei would expect from his slender build. Shuuhei’s muzzle, snapped clean in two down the face but still connected by the strap, tangled in the kid’s bony fingers. It must have broken when Shuuhei threw it.

“Thought you might want it back.” The stranger says smoothly. “Though I don’t see why, it’s was a pretty awful thing even when it wasn’t broken. Not quite sure if it can even be fixed, either. Still, you should take it anyways.”

Shuuhei stares for a moment before he still feels stupid, the stranger still holding up the mask. Finally, he slides out from between Renji and Rangiku, hearing them slide across the vinyl until their shoulders bump against each other in his absence. Shuuhei stands and walks to the other side of the car, feeling a strange sense of surrealism to the scene he can’t explain.

When he takes the muzzle, he notices a glimmer on the boy’s finger- a ring, glinting with pure gold in the shape of a perfect circle, with vibrant and polished sapphire carved into the image of a winged serpent inside it- one of the emblems of the Church, the one that gets rotated out with a new design every ten years. This is the most recent one.

“Thanks.” Shuuhei says, holding the two pieced of the muzzle in each of his hands. “… Is this the part where you tell me who you are.”

The boy’s brow knit and his frown softens for an instant. “I’m a mutual friend.”

Shuuhei doesn’t miss the way his eyes slide over to Renji, and he feels a surge of protectiveness that he can’t quite explain away. His eyes hover on Rangiku as well, but with a gaze not quite as heavy and that doesn’t quite make the hairs on the back of Shuuhei’s neck stand up. “I told Miss Rangiku about yours and Abarai’s particular talents. I’m glad to know it worked out.”

“Well, none of us are dead.” Shuuhei mutters sourly, and the kid actually snorts a bit of laughter at that.

“Yeah, well.” The stranger smiles and his entire face seemed to become flushed with color and life. His eyes look like Shuuhei could fall straight into them. “That’s always a good start. I’m Kira. Maybe you’ve been told about me?”

His voice ends strangely, strained with incredible degrees of hopefulness and for a moment Shuuhei really just wants to say yes. Instead, he shakes his head. “Sorry, no.”

Kira’s leans back, eyes hooded and showing too much white when he cranes his neck up to meet Shuuhei’s gaze, who is still standing. “Well, I expected that would be the case. Maybe he’ll change his mind, soon. I don’t like to meddle, you see, but I think the two of you could use a little meddling now and then. Matsumoto, too. She could use a good team.”

“Who-” The train rattles, and Shuuhei’s jaw stops working in order for him to avoid slicing open his own lips on his teeth. Kira looks nonplussed, like he didn’t even feel the jolt.

“It was nice to meet you, Hisagi.” He smiles again, and he’s full of an impossible kind of sincerity. “I hope I get to know you a bit better in the future.”  
The train shakes again in a way that nearly knocked Shuuhei off balance even with his knees bent and when he focuses again the train is empty except for him, a sleeping Witch and a dozing knight.

Shuuhei worms his way back between his two sleeping companions. The muzzle gets dropped squarely on his lap and he digs his fists into his pockets, and chews his way through all the things that Renji might not have ever told him.

That kind of business can be handled tomorrow- after a long sleep, a clean change of clothes and a hot bath, not necessarily in that order.


End file.
